The design will feature an octacore, unlocked Zambezi processor
dubbed "FX", reviving AMD's old enthusiast CPU branding. Zambezi,
codenamed after a river in Africa, is AMD's high performance 32 nm SOI process upcoming desktop
CPU based on the company's newBulldozer architecture.

The new platform will also feature a Radeon 6xxx HD graphics card from AMD and
an AMD 9-series chipset motherboard (socket AM3).

Leslie Sobon, AMD's vice president of worldwide product marketing, comments,
"AMD’s FX brand will enable an over-the-top experience for PC enthusiasts.
By combining an unlocked, native eight-core processor, the latest in chipset
technology, and AMD’s latest graphics cards, FX customers will enjoy an
unrivalled feature set and amazing control over their PC’s performance."

The obvious competitor of Scorpius will be Intel Corp.'s (INTC) Sandy Bridge, possibly paired with GeForce 5xx series GPUs from NVIDIA Corp. (NVDA).
With eight physical cores, Scorpius will arguably have the edge over
single-socket Intel designs, though, which currently only feature four cores
(eight threads). Intel will bump its core count to six cores in the near
future, but it remains to be seen whether that will be enough.

Performance numbers on Bulldozer are still lacking, so it
remains to be seen exactly how powerful this octacore gaming rig will be.

Regardless of who comes out on top performance wise, it's refreshing to see a
reinvigorated AMD challenging both Intel and NVIDIA in the CPU and GPU sectors.
A competitive market should push all three PC hardware makers to quicken the release of powerful new hardware that will delight PC gamers and
enthusiasts -- few as they may be, these days.